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Xerox Corp. is moving production of a line of digital office-equipment products to a plant in Mexico and cutting about 200 union jobs at its manufacturing hub in suburban Rochester, N.Y.

The Stamford-based company said manufacturing of its multipurpose Document Center machines, which can copy, print, scan and fax documents, will be switched during the next six weeks to its plant in central Mexico.

The layoffs will be completed by February. Xerox employs about 13,000 in the Rochester area. It is undergoing an overhaul to trim $1 billion in annual costs.

Since October, Xerox said, it has cut 3,200 jobs. It employs about 94,000 worldwide. Its overhaul calls for slashing an unspecified number of jobs.

Shatner Dumped?

Priceline.com, the Internet-based company that allows customers to bid on airline tickets and hotel rooms, has dropped former ``Star Trek'' actor William Shatner from its ad campaigns, Advertising Age reported on its Web site, citing unidentified people close to the situation.

An ad featuring Shatner that ran during the holidays said the company would continue to serve its customers, the magazine said. The company is beginning a new series of ads by Hill, Holiday, Connors, Cosmopulos in New York that do not include Shatner. The decision was made to keep marketing fresh, the magazine said, citing an unidentified source.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. announced plans Thursday to close 89 underperforming stores amid a tightening outlook for retailers that caused its sales to fall slightly last month.

The move will cost about 2,400 Sears employees their jobs.

Stores targeted for closing were mostly among Sears' 2,100 specialty retail locations, include 53 National Tire and Battery stores and 30 hardware stores. Just four of its 860 full-line department stores will be affected. None of the closings will be in Connecticut.

Sears also released its monthly sales update, showing a 1.1 percent decline in revenue from comparable domestic stores during the holiday period -- $4.42 billion for the five weeks that ended Dec. 30.

Have You Heard?

Convenience. That's the best description for the kinds of products that hit the market in 2000.

Marketing Intelligence Service, which tracks new products, said its online database showed that a record 31,432 food, beverage, health, beauty, household and pet products debuted last year.

The editors of MIS's four trade publications rated the products on factors such as packaging, formulation and new markets opened by a new product.

The most popular items of the year turned out to be breakfast bars from General Mills that are based on several of the company's popular cereal lines.

The No. 2 ranking went to International Culinary Group, progenitors of a food for consumers who hate doing dishes: a kit that comes with a pouch of French onion soup and an edible crock-pot.